


Evermirror

by Masterweaver



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, Multiverse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:40:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28536036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masterweaver/pseuds/Masterweaver
Summary: The song is not always the sameand yetthe melody seems so familiar
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Evermirror

There are some who say that, if everything happens somewhere, any event, any choice, is without worth in the face of the ever-shifting eternities.

This is a falsehood perpetuated by the illusion of definition.

Everything happens somewhere, but some things are infinitely more probable than others.

* * *

She wakes.

Again, she wakes, and sighs.

The dreams are different, yes. Sometimes it is a pirate crew, other times merely a shop of coffee. There are travels across the vast starscapes, and castles with knights and wizardry. Horses can be ridden, named, raised, and tamed. Or, sometimes, no horse, but a mount draconic--or a motorcycle--or something else entirely.

(Her body moves without her control, from bed to shower as she cleans and readies herself...)

Yet there is a commonality--many, in fact, but one that baffles her more than the rest.

The woman.

Oh, she is as fluid as the rest of the dreams, or almost. Asian, or perhaps polynesian, a blend so imprecise she cannot tell; her skin sometimes as pale as sand, and sometimes as dark as chocolate, and often somewhere between. The outfits she wears vary, white and black or black and white, often complex in assemblage and always with a purple band upon them revealed only to those who seek. Dark hair long, or short, but always fluffy, and topped with... a bow, or a pair of cat ears, or nothing (and even then, there is a hint of an invisible pair of triangles upon her head).

(Shampoo. Conditioner. Consider the second. Put it back, nobody would care.)

The eyes remain the same, though. A playful slant, bracketed by elegant lashes, their golden wells hide joy and sorrow and will and wounds. She has stared into them often, seen the blends shift, but there is something unifying. And some mornings--the mornings she embarrassedly realizes she'll need to do laundry--she remembers that the woman always has a great strength to her limbs, a deep flexibility to her core, and her lips--

She shakes herself from her contemplation, forcing back a blush. The woman is a dream. Just a dream. Like all others since the experiment.

Reality makes its own demands.

* * *

Consider the chaos it takes to make a star. Gases swirling, compressing, till a burst of heat and pressure--and at what point is gravity enough? At what point does a cloud become a ball of flame? And that only in universes where the rules of reality allow such.

Consider then, the chaos for a planet--rocks, metal, ice, swirling round the central heat of a star--likely the corpse of its predecessor given new life. Consider what it takes for there to be a chance of survival, that the sphere is the right size in the right range of the star, that its inner core spins to deflect invisible poison from the very light that would be needed.

Now consider the chaos that requires life to form, to exist...

A million factors each, and multiplied together, beyond comprehension. Countless universes of void and uncaring, or so there should be...

if.

If, it was always a one-to-one chance for every last choice.

* * *

The treads slow to a stop atop the frozen ice. She takes her hand off the control panel, leaning back and staring out the plastisteel. Above her twinkle the stars.

A blanket of black, made blue by the countless speckles. There, and there, rivers, as though some artist had spilled glitter on the whole sheet.

It's strange to think there was a time where they were hidden, even if only temporarily. The simulations, yes, they paint the sky a whole blue save for the single featureless moon--no, the sun, she knows it is called the sun. It was always yellow there, but here...

She looks for it, and yes, there it is. Still the brightest star, a circle no larger than the tip of her finger. She crosses her eyes, and the pair of suns stare back, lilac eyes of some distant diety.

Gods aren't real.

But sometimes... sometimes it's nice to pretend there's somebody watching. Somebody who cares.

(She could, of course, just tap the holopad next to her. Talk to the uploads. She will, when the right clock ticks down, but for now...)

A sigh escapes her lips. She starts to talk to her imaginary friend. Today she saw a tree, she says.

(It was probably a telephone pole.)

She talks about how trees used to use light and air to grow. How they were home to many small creatures, how they made the first homes for her own kind.

And she likes to think the goddess above listens. That there's still a distant something that cares for her. Not because they need her, but because... well, because she is _her._

A warning light flashes and she sighs, uncrossing her eyes and staring at the distant lilac sun. She wishes her guardian a good night, shuts the armored shades, and accepts the reconstituted meal.

The chair goes flat, and she falls asleep alone, again. Her ears twitch in her dreams, an unknown voice calling for her.

* * *

Chaos alone does not set path for realities. Once life exists, it begins to direct.

At first it is simple. Hunger. Survival. Extension of self. But then, self begins to exist. And self begins to have will.

And with will, millions of possibilities become mere thousands. Each choice, a _choice._ Marked by many factors, but weighted before happenstance.

The branches thin. Some become all but impossible. And some flourish the other way, for they grow ever more likely.

* * *

She's down on the floor again for the next experiment. Not that she's part of it, really, her diploma is still new. All the old jokes rise in her head--smart enough to operate a switch. Real life is much more complicated than a video game, of course.

(They'd presented her a crowbar when she was hired, mock solemnity masking good humor. She still hangs it from her hip every day.)

The great machine roars to life, cameras and scanners and all sorts of science equipment focused on the tiny shreds of matter rocketing around the miles-long circle. Of course she doesn't take part in the Geek Club up above, because everyone needs to work at it. Her job right now is to make sure the track stays clear so all the microscopic marbles can roll their little quarks out. Which basically means watching a window and pushing buttons.

A university education is needed to get this job. For good reason, mind, but...

She doesn't sigh, she's too professional, but her eyes lid a bit behind her safety goggles as she stares at the pane in front of her. It's thick enough to see the constant sparks of SCIENCE rushing chaotically through the world without worrying about them leaking out. It looks totally normal from here...

(Five seconds. Five seconds without the goggles, and she could have sworn she saw something. She put them on before anybody noticed, but then the dreams began...)

A quick glance up shows nobody is watching. To the left, right, everyone is focused on their own terminals.

She knows it's a stupid idea.

It's dangerously stupid. Not just for her, but for everyone around her.

(She remembers the sad look in those slanted eyes. The desperation...)

Without even really thinking, she lifts her goggles, and the sparks become something else.

* * *

Each world a song, resounding! And notes oft-repeated louder, touching across worlds to echo! A constant build, similar, similar each, all as one.

Oh, how it comes. How bundles of realities are distinguished by the smallest of atoms, being akin in other form. And so the idea of happenstance falls before the will of the living.

Destiny forged by mortals, unaware of their greater choir. And what then, when a universe lacks a singer to bring forth the song around them?

What then but to find another, and begin to sing together.

* * *

It's the middle of the day cycle when she sees it.

She stops the treads, spinning around and bolting for the airlock. Her feet pound nervously as she pulls on her helmet, watching the indicators flash down, down, down.

The outer door opens with a hiss, the cold rolling in hungrily. She grabs the scraper off the wall, jumping out and clicking her hoverboots on the way to the ground.

(Once, the snow was only a visitor, coming only on occasion. Now it is the lord of the world. It must be respected.)

She skates across, and part of her points out this is dumb. It's just a random glimmer on the ice. It can't actually be...

it can't be.

They would be dead.

(Would it be weird, she wonders, putting a dead body in the chair next to her? She already talks to her trees...)

It's only fifteen feet, but she feels like it's an eternity, her breath hitching in the helmet. She looks down and--

It's the goddess. It's her goddess. Lilac eyes, with hair like the sun had to be before.

That's impossible, but here in the ice, she's staring right up at her.

(The details are blurred by the snow. It could just be a reflection.)

She readies the scraper, jamming it in as far as it will go--which is only half an inch, but chipping away is good enough. It's not a goddess, she tells herself. It's a person. Trapped in the ice. She's not that lucky.

Something moves on the other side. Something long, and black--

And then the ice shatters, or dissolves, or something, and an arm reaches out--

\--and the ice is suddenly back.

The arm hangs in the air for a moment, before falling--and she catches it before it hits the snow. Yep, this here is a human arm. Right arm, going straight up to the elbow. There should be blood or gore leaking but, when she looks at it, she sees a shimmering silver light instead.

(Every part of her is screaming this is important. She doesn't know why.)

She takes the arm back into the truck. Puts it in the chair next to her...

Puts a blanket over it.

And then drives on, trying to gather her thoughts.


End file.
